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Strange parameter in URL causing duplicate content (DC)


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Hello,

 
In Google Webmaster tools, i see that i have more and more duplicate content on my category pages.
I have 2 categories and i have duplicate content like this :

5-my-category
/5-my-category?amp%25253B&p=2
/5-my-category?amp%25253B
/5-my-category?amp%25253Bp=3
/5-my-category?amp%253B&p=2
 
Only categories are affected. Does anyone has noticed the same issue and have an idea where these strange parameters come from :
 

amp
amp%
amp%25253B
etc.
 
I have plenty of these parameters so i guess it’s dynamic. It’s not only one wrong character added to a url somewhere on the site. 
 
I’ve checked the entire site, source code, sitemap, google, and i don’t know how Google finds these urls.
 
What i’ve tried today : deactivate pagination and remove productsSortForm on category pages.
Edited by Cloud Nine (see edit history)
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  • 2 months later...

Same problem here, and we haven't yet figured out exactely what causes the problem.
We are on PS 1.5.6.2.
Some of these strange parameters are (examples)

%2525252525252525253Bid_category

amp%2525253Bn

%2525252525253Bn

amp%252525253Bn

 

What we found out so far: Google crawls such URLs. It must be an URL encoding / decoding problem somewhere in prestashop.

And yes - as far as we have check it. its only seen in the category pages.

 

We suspect, it might be an issue in combination with the items per page URL parameter n or id_category. Why this? In google webmaster, almos all such URLS have also the parameter id_category set. As soon as we change the items per page from default to some other value, the URL gets not only the n parameter but also the id_category like this:

?id_category=67&n=20

 

Another heavy candidate in out opinion is the block layered module. So far this is a guess but all URLs shown in the google webmaster tools are URLs in which the blocklayered navigation is active. Any help or hint is appreciated. Cheers. Scully

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another information for those who claim there is not problem with the %2525252525 URL encoding:

use this simple google search:

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=prestashop+25253Bn&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=n6LwVd2kG4n_UvXYhDA#q=prestashop+25253Bn&start=10

 

And you will find about 13'000 pages shown where these URL parameters have been crawled. Adding a 3rd 25 to the search strings, we find another 7'500 pages, with a 4th 25 (resulting in 252525253Bn) we find 6'700 pages. Since there are douzends of variations in length and exact notation, it might be well above 200'000 pages having this particular problem.

 

I would say: It's time for the prestashop team to look into it.

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Hello,

 
Yes, i’m sure there are a lot of websites which have this issue. 
It’s really interesting to have made this search on google.
 
The partial solution is to add a canonical to the product page and category page in order to avoid duplicate content in Google Webmaster Tools. I’ve tested it and it works.
 
Have you noticed that if you try to access an url with strange parameters inside your website, you are redirected to the correct url. But if you make the link on other website, prestashop doesn’t do the redirection (for example, make a link with strange parameter on a web site, this link open your shop, you will see that the redirection is not ok).
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  • 3 years later...

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